Retail locations typically employ multiple inventory management associates that perform different tasks related to inventory management and stocking. One associate may unload/remove items from a truck that delivers the items and place the unloaded items into stocking carts. Another associate may be responsible for taking the stocking cart to the sales floor and placing the items onto the shelves on the sales floor. Yet another associate may be responsible for taking the items remaining on the stocking cart and sorting the “overstock” items into one or more storage bins in the stock room. Still another associate may be responsible for determining whether there is a need for more items on the shelves on the sales floor and retrieving the “overstock” items from the stock room and delivering the items from the stock room to the display shelf on the sales floor.
One disadvantage of using several inventory management associates to independently perform separate stocking tasks as described above is decreased inventory management efficiency. For example, the associate binning the “overstock” items in the stock room typically does not go onto the sales floor to check available space for the item on a shelf on the sales floor, and thus does not know if the items being binned in the stock room can be instead displayed on the shelf on the sales floor. This may lead to undesired situations where the shelves on the sales floor are not fully stocked with items while a number of such items that could be displayed on the shelves and displayed to the consumers are stored in bins in the stock room.
Another disadvantage of known inventory management systems is that the associate binning an “overstock” item in the stock room typically does not know that identical items are already stored in bins in the stock room. This may lead to an undesired situation, where identical items are stored in different locations in the stock room, leading to inefficiency in retrieving such items, since an inventory management associate is often forced to search for multiple identical items in different bins located in separate locations of the stock room.
Elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. Certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. The terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.